Saturday, February 7, 2015

We do get snow here in Hawai'i, at least on this island. We have two mountains that are almost 14,000 feet. Two nights ago the winds were up to and over 90 mph up there, blowing snow and roads closed. Down here (1400 feet) it's chilly at nights and especially early in the mornings as the wind blows over that snow and down the slopes into our house. Ok, it only gets to the low 60s but the wind chill must be in the mid 50s, right? It warms up to the upper 70s to mid 80s during our winter days so our temps vary in a 24 hr period and we need goose down comforters, sweaters and socks. I'm sure you feel sorry for us LOL.

During the break I took from blogging and Facebook I continued to color. It rejuvenated me inside to make cards for as many as I could. Here is a sampling as no two were identical.

I made 20 different cards and tried to enclose a pink and a blue UTEE snowflake inside each. The insides of the cards are stamped and decorated. The envelopes are stamped and lined with pattern paper that was edged with Marta Stewart doily edge punch.

ASK ME IF THIS WAS A FULFILLING AND FUN FUN FUN PROJECT!!!!!!! eeeeeYESsssss!!!!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

I've been absent for a while as I recharged my inner batteries, and completed a pretty large card project over the past few weeks. I'll post some pictures of those soon.

Our daughter's in-laws are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this week. I just found out last week so had to get crackin' on this.

The design of the card is a center step. The main, focal image center panel measures 5" x 7." I used an entire 8-1/2" x 11" piece of 120# GKD white cardstock for the folded support stand.

The gold shimmer panel, pattern paper, tole flowers and butterfly are from Anna Griffin. I also used one of her embossing folders, "Peony," on the main gold panel and the bottom third of the white main panel. Gold satin ribbon from SU. Pearls and rhinestones from Want2Scrap.

I downloaded a beautiful font and just typed away, then printed it, centering the information on 80# white GKD cardstock. The little 'x' punches on the bottom front panel is a Martha Stewart punch.

All the flowers, bird and butterfly were too pale in color for me. Using Copic markers, I re-colored all the embellishments (some parts were a baby blue, and clashed with the card) using the darkest of each color family, then blending to the lightest. Then I used Wink of Stella clear all over the flower petals, the butterfly and the bird. The elements are all popped using adhesive foam. Finally, I took a butterfly pin and put some glass pearls and gold beads on it, pierced the bow, but more beads on and a bugle bead to cover the point of the pin. Glossy Accents holds the beads in place and covered the orange rhinestones on the top left flower to make sure they don't fall off. The last step was to bend the butterfly wings into soft semi circles, then cover the butterfly with a coat of glossy Mod Podge to stiffen it for its ride to California ♥

This is one of the biggest cards I've ever attempted but I really liked the freedom to work on a larger space compared to being confined to the smaller, A2 work area. I made this as easily as possible - no template, no special cuts. I winged the mountain valley folds and it works. We are including a pound of freshly roasted 100% Kona coffee as a gift.

Side view:

As you can see, it's just a couple of simple folds and the main focal panel rests / adheres to the back mountain fold. You can do it!!! Do some specialty folded cards. It will reawaken your mojo ♥